I have ‘played around’ in the creative field for as long as I can remember. At school I loved and did art and after leaving school and working {not in the creative field though} I always had some sort of artistic project on the go. While raising our family I would love to draw, and make items, for and with our daughter and share and teach her various crafts

When our daughter became independent from us I then started to pursue various arts and crafts, trying to find something I really loved and connected with. From about 1990 I worked with textiles for 12 years, teaching myself and taking the occasional workshop and loved the wide diversity of this medium. I learned fabric painting and embroidery, free-hand machine embroidery, wool and silk embroidery and felting, as well as cloth and polymer-clay doll making. For all these interests I was drawing as well and I took watercolour painting lessons from a local artist. At the time, I enjoyed the painting but I didn’t ‘click’ with it.

From about 2004, due to family commitments, I stopped doing any sort of creative work until 2011. My time had freed up and I wanted to get back in to doing something creative but I didn’t know what. Then, I was talking to a friend who mentioned that there were watercolour painting classes being run in Leongatha, our neighbouring town, and maybe I could check them out. I did and I feel that I have now found my passion for creating again.

It didn’t take me long to stop feeling nervous using this beautiful medium. The change came when I realised that not every sheet of paper had to end up as a “masterpiece” and the only rule to using watercolour paints is “there are no rules”, and from that moment I relaxed and started to enjoy my painting. I paint in various styles and experiment a lot with textures and other materials in my paintings.

When I begin to paint a subject I’m not so concerned with representing it realistically, but more concerned with using colour and my various techniques and materials to create something that represents the subject and provokes a feeling for the subject. I want the viewer to be able to “feel’ the rain or surf, or heat on the flowers, etc.

When I’m working on a painting the things that thrill me are mixing a few colours together and seeing how they react with and to each other. The way one colour can ‘push’ another colour away and the beautiful blending that happens to make a new colour, is amazing to me and I never get tired of seeing it happen.

I love the works of Klimt, Hundertwasser, Mondrian and Van Gogh and in more recent times, the works of Shirley Trevena, Ann Blockley, Jean Haines and John Lovett. There are so many great and experimental and exciting artists that have influenced my work in some way. How wonderful!

Painting allows me to lose myself in what I’m doing and it also lets me play with all the wonderful materials that are available to today’s artist. I try different techniques using extra water, salt, cling film plastic wrap, sticks and other tools to make marks and shapes. I also use different art mediums together to help get the effects I think I am looking for.

I have my favourite colours and brands of paints but I also use different colour paints mixed together to create just the colour I need and I also use various brands of watercolour paint. It’s always good for me to try out new paints as I never know if it will become my new ‘favourite’ colour.

I don’t do commission work as I prefer the freedom to choose my own subjects and colours, etc. I will however, run with a themed series sometimes and hope that a ‘client’ will choose a painting from this series, if they wish to purchase.

I started selling my work about 4 years ago when I entered the Mirboo North Art Show and sold a painting on the opening night. It was such a thrill! I still love that feeling when I sell something as its lovely to think that there is somebody who likes your work enough to want to pay for it and hang it on their wall. I feel it’s a real compliment and that sometimes I’m on the right track. If I don’t sell, that’s ok too!

Other art shows/exhibitions I have entered are :

Leongatha Painters Art Exhibition-2014,

Korumburra Rotary Art Show-2015, Leongatha Rotary Art Show-2014, 2015

Inverloch Art Show-2015.

Irene McConville

Artist Statement, 2015

I have ‘played around’ in the creative field for as long as I can remember. At school I loved and did art and after leaving school and working {not in the creative field though} I always had some sort of artistic project on the go. While raising our family I would love to draw, and make items, for and with our daughter and share and teach her various crafts

When our daughter became independent from us I then started to pursue various arts and crafts, trying to find something I really loved and connected with. From about 1990 I worked with textiles for 12 years, teaching myself and taking the occasional workshop and loved the wide diversity of this medium. I learned fabric painting and embroidery, free-hand machine embroidery, wool and silk embroidery and felting, as well as cloth and polymer-clay doll making. For all these interests I was drawing as well and I took watercolour painting lessons from a local artist. At the time, I enjoyed the painting but I didn’t ‘click’ with it.

From about 2004, due to family commitments, I stopped doing any sort of creative work until 2011. My time had freed up and I wanted to get back in to doing something creative but I didn’t know what. Then, I was talking to a friend who mentioned that there were watercolour painting classes being run in Leongatha, our neighbouring town, and maybe I could check them out. I did and I feel that I have now found my passion for creating again.

It didn’t take me long to stop feeling nervous using this beautiful medium. The change came when I realised that not every sheet of paper had to end up as a “masterpiece” and the only rule to using watercolour paints is “there are no rules”, and from that moment I relaxed and started to enjoy my painting. I paint in various styles and experiment a lot with textures and other materials in my paintings.

When I begin to paint a subject I’m not so concerned with representing it realistically, but more concerned with using colour and my various techniques and materials to create something that represents the subject and provokes a feeling for the subject. I want the viewer to be able to “feel’ the rain or surf, or heat on the flowers, etc.

When I’m working on a painting the things that thrill me are mixing a few colours together and seeing how they react with and to each other. The way one colour can ‘push’ another colour away and the beautiful blending that happens to make a new colour, is amazing to me and I never get tired of seeing it happen.

I love the works of Klimt, Hundertwasser, Mondrian and Van Gogh and in more recent times, the works of Shirley Trevena, Ann Blockley, Jean Haines and John Lovett. There are so many great and experimental and exciting artists that have influenced my work in some way. How wonderful!

Painting allows me to lose myself in what I’m doing and it also lets me play with all the wonderful materials that are available to today’s artist. I try different techniques using extra water, salt, cling film plastic wrap, sticks and other tools to make marks and shapes. I also use different art mediums together to help get the effects I think I am looking for.

I have my favourite colours and brands of paints but I also use different colour paints mixed together to create just the colour I need and I also use various brands of watercolour paint. It’s always good for me to try out new paints as I never know if it will become my new ‘favourite’ colour.

I don’t do commission work as I prefer the freedom to choose my own subjects and colours, etc. I will however, run with a themed series sometimes and hope that a ‘client’ will choose a painting from this series, if they wish to purchase.

I started selling my work about 4 years ago when I entered the Mirboo North Art Show and sold a painting on the opening night. It was such a thrill! I still love that feeling when I sell something as its lovely to think that there is somebody who likes your work enough to want to pay for it and hang it on their wall. I feel it’s a real compliment and that sometimes I’m on the right track. If I don’t sell, that’s ok too!